Countdown for atypical ad man

DraftFCB's Fassnacht faces long odds in bid to keep S. C. Johnson

Only nine months into his tenure as head of the Chicago office of advertising agency DraftFCB, Michael Fassnacht already faces his career-defining moment: the fate of the S. C. Johnson & Son Inc. account, the agency's biggest and oldest.

With their five-hour final pitch to retain the account wrapped up, Mr. Fassnacht and his agency now wait for an answer, which is expected before the end of the month. At stake is $65 million in revenue and the jobs of at least 100 of the agency's 1,100 staffers who steward the roughly $1 billion worth of advertising annually for products ranging from Glade air freshener to Windex glass cleaner.

If DraftFCB wins it all, Mr. Fassnacht, 44, could claim credit for breaking a streak of high-profile account defections, including much of the advertising for longtime client Kraft Foods Inc. of Northfield and national TV responsibilities for Bloomington-based State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. If Racine, Wis.-based S. C. Johnson withdraws the entire account, Mr. Fassnacht will have to deal with the ugly aftermath, including the likelihood of job cuts.

It's an enormous responsibility for a man who has no experience running a traditional advertising agency or handling high-level relationships for consumer packaged-goods clients typically found in Chicago shops. His career has been built on customer intelligence and loyalty marketing, hardly the traits of a typical agency chief, who spends more one-on-one time with the client than with reams of consumer research.

“He's never had a campaign. He's never run a media plan,” says one executive who has worked closely with Mr. Fassnacht.

“He's not an agency guy. He didn't come up through an ad agency,” another executive says. “In some ways, he's more like a client who's working at the agency.”

DraftFCB was the last contender to make its case, after an Omnicom Group team of agencies fronted by Chicago-based EnergyBBDO and a WPP Group PLC team, including the Chicago office of Ogilvy & Mather and its sister agency, OgilvyAction. None of the agencies will comment on the review.

SHAKE-UPS

Mr. Fassnacht's rise to the top of DraftFCB's Chicago office followed a series of high-profile personnel changes and client losses. Last August, the agency ousted Mark Modesto, then-president of DraftFCB North America and the Chicago office, who also was the worldwide director on the S. C. Johnson account. The agency didn't provide an explanation or tell the client. People close to the situation say DraftFCB Executive Chairman Howard Draft and CEO Laurence Boschetto were attempting to eliminate account leadership fiefdoms and that Mr. Fassnacht was chosen because he was less likely to usurp that plan.

Before being named Chicago president in September, Mr. Fassnacht was global chief strategy officer. He joined Draft in 2005 as chief customer intelligence officer before the then-direct marketing shop merged with ad agency Foote Cone & Belding Inc. the next year.

The Germany native joined Draft from San Francisco-based Loyalty Matrix Inc., where he was founding president and CEO for three years. Other posts include vice-president of international sales and client services at San Francisco-based Netcentives Inc. and general manager of Cologne, Germany-based Deutsche Lufthansa A.G., where he managed the airline's Miles and More loyalty program. Mr. Fassnacht has degrees in economics and Germanic studies from the University of Göttingen.

“He has not followed the traditional path, but I think that's what makes him well-suited to the job,” says Tony Weisman, president of Digitas Inc.'s Chicago-Boston-Detroit region. When he was chief marketing officer of Draft Worldwide, Mr. Weisman hired Mr. Fassnacht as a consultant for two years before hiring him as chief customer intelligence officer.

Not one to “walk the halls,” Mr. Fassnacht prefers occasional coffees with groups of 20 or more staff to check in. He has a dry, self-deprecating wit and occasionally pokes fun at his still-thick accent despite residing in the U.S. for more than a decade.

Current and former colleagues say that while it was easy to underestimate his skills with clients, others say it's too early to judge whether he can deliver.

“He may not be as forceful as Modesto was, but he's also not as experienced,” another former colleague says. As far as his vision for growth, the executive says: “It's hard to put together a plan for growth when you're trying to stabilize the business.”

quote|Tony Weisman, Digitas Inc.

' He has not followed the traditional path, but I think that's what makes him well-suited to the job.'